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Thomas graduated from San Marcos High School in 1983 and went to Texas Christian University on a football scholarship. He eventually graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1987 with a BA in History.

Before he began writing novels for young adults, Thomas taught high-school journalism at John Marshall High School in San Antonio, Texas, and advised the University of Texas at Austin student magazine. From August 1993 to June 1995 he worked for Channel One News, an experience which informed his novel 1998 Satellite Down. Thomas was a member of three Austin, Texas bands — Public Bulletin, Hey Zeus, and Black Irish — from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s.

Thomas's first television writing credit came on a 1996 episode of Cartoon Network's Space Ghost Coast to Coast. He next wrote the script that would eventually become the 1999 film Fortune Cookie. Based on the script, he was offered a job on the writing staff of Dawson's Creek during the show's first season. After reading the same script, then-president of Sony Entertainment Jeff Sagansky suggested Thomas create a romantic comedy pilot. That show soon developed into Cupid, a critically-acclaimed 1998 dramedy series canceled after 14 episodes in 1999. This led to Thomas being asked to run ABC's 1999 series Snoops, although he left due to creative differences with David E. Kelley before the show aired. After Snoops, Thomas got pilot orders for his US adaptation of the British Metropolis and original script The Sticks, but neither went to series.

Thomas got his second show picked up in 2004 — the critically successful but again low-rated Veronica Mars, which battled low ratings until it was canceled after the third season in 2007. He was offered the showrunner position on NBC's Friday Night Lights in 2006, which he declined in favor of the possibility (and eventual reality) of a third season of Veronica Mars. Thomas was also offered and declined CBS's Viva Laughlin in 2007; he joined ABC's Miss/Guided in May 2007 before leaving in July of the same year, again due to creative differences.

Thomas worked as a writer on ABC's short-lived primetime series Big Shots from 2007 to 2008, co-wrote and shot the comedy pilot Party Down (picked up by Starz to air in 2009), and had three pilots ordered for the 2008-2009 television season: a remake of Cupid for ABC, since picked up to air midseason; Good Behavior, a US adaptation of New Zealand series Outrageous Fortune also for ABC, and a modern spinoff of Beverly Hills, 90210 for The CW, which he departed early in favor of his other projects. As of February 2009, according to Entertainment Weekly, Thomas has fueled rumors of a possible Veronica Mars film.

On June 30, 2010, he told Kristin Dos Santos at E! Online that he was "writing a drama pilot set in the world of corporate espionage for Showtime."

On August 25, 2010, Variety reported that NBC has ordered a pilot of a new sitcom, to be called Temp, for which Thomas, Dan Etheridge, and Jon Enbom will be executive producers.

He has also adapted the screenplay for Drive Me Crazy, and directed On Air, a twenty-minute film adaptation of a story from Doing Time.

Books

• Green Thumb (1999) (ISBN 0-689-82886-1)
• Satellite Down (1998) (ISBN 0-689-83052-1)
• Doing Time: Notes from the Undergrad (1997) (ISBN 0-689-82414-9)
• Slave Day (1997) (ISBN 0-689-82193-X)
• Rats Saw God (1996) (ISBN 0-689-80777-5)

Television programs

• Good Behavior (writer, executive producer)
• Space Ghost Coast to Coast (1996) (writer, episode Explode)
• Dawson's Creek (1998) (writer, season one, episodes Prelude to a Kiss aka Kiss and In the Company of Men aka Roadtrip)
• Cupid (1998) (creator, writer, executive producer)
• Veronica Mars (2004) (creator, writer, executive producer, director)
• 90210 (2008) (creator, writer)
• Cupid (2009) (creator, writer, executive producer)
• Party Down (2009) (creator, writer, executive producer)
• Plymouth Rock (2010) (creator, writer, executive producer) - (Not picked up)

Films

• Fortune Cookie (1999) (Writer)
• Drive Me Crazy (1999) (Screenwriter)

Thomas has been nominated for several Golden Satellite Awards.